The Welfare Ministry on February 17 decided to implement measures to reduce nursing-care costs imposed on victims of the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster. This is a result of joint efforts made by local residents and the Japanese Communist Party.

The amounts of premiums for the public nursing-care insurance and fees for care facilities are in principle determined according to users’ incomes. When survivors moved to higher ground after selling their land devestated by the massive tsunami, nursing-care expenses borne by them often rose sharply because the proceeds from the sale of their land was included as income.

In April 2015, JCP parliamentarian Koike Akira took up this issue in the Diet. Koike referred to the case of an elderly person living in Rikuzentakata City in Iwate Prefecture. According to Koike, after the survivor sold his stricken land in the city, the amount of charges he had to pay for using nursing-care facilities increased by 800,000 yen a year. “Disaster victims had no choice but to sell off their devastated properties. The current system laying further financial burdens on sufferers should be revised without delay,” said Koike.

The ministry has now changed the calculation formula into one not counting the sale of real estate to survivors’ incomes. It is estimated that this deduction will apply to about 130,000 affected people.